


Asthenia

by skyline



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Drabble, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-01
Updated: 2010-06-01
Packaged: 2017-11-15 18:44:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/530482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyline/pseuds/skyline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Destiny or no, Guinevere thinks they would have all walked this path, willingly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Asthenia

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for one of those drabble fic memes on LJ, where you set your iPod on shuffle and write fic with a word count that matches song length? Yeaaah. I wasn't going to post these here, but by special request: tada!

One cold winter night, Guinevere had paused outside Arthur’s war room, empty in the pre-dawn hours. Her dress had snagged on something, although she never did find the offending object. She cursed quietly, trying to free the train without making any noise. Sneaking back from illicit liaisons was the last thing she needed to be caught doing. 

Sometimes, she wanted to stop; when Arthur looked at her with eyes so blue she could see straight to his soul. He was a good man, he was the best man, and it made what she was doing all the more terrible.

It wasn’t that she didn’t love Arthur. It was just that she loved Lancelot _more_.

If someone had told her a few years back that she’d be no better than the myriad of cheating noblewomen who streamed through the castle back in her servant days, inevitably caught with their skirts pushed up their hips and a stableboy grooming their nether regions, she would have found the idea ludicrous. But now she knew. Love wasn’t something separate from lust, and it was all so much easier when mocked from a distance.

“-you can’t fight your destiny,” a voice rings from the chambers. And this, yes, it was Arthur, his voice vibrant and raw.

“Watch me,” Gwen recognized Merlin now, the low tones and anger. He always sounded that way of late.

“I won’t let you do this,” there was a noise, like Arthur had grabbed for him, “You cannot leave. You’re supposed to be by my side, always-“

His voice cracked then, and she couldn’t make out the rest of the words that followed until, “-that’s what they prophesied. Being together is what we were born to do.”

“Well,” and she could almost imagine Merlin’s expression, “You’ve made a fine mess of that, haven’t you?”

She felt more than heard Arthur tumble into Merlin’s embrace. She felt it when they kissed.

And it all made a kind of terrible sense then. Destiny. She tasted the word, foul and bitter. All it meant was this; they’d all been born to be this way, to be twisted and broken. And even knowing that, knowing that there was no other path than the one she’d chosen in Lancelot’s arms, even knowing that the _other_ man she loved was inside those stone chambers, murmuring incoherently in the arms of his royal advisor, it didn’t make a whit of difference.

Destiny or no, Guinevere thinks they would have all walked this path, willingly. Silently, she slips away.


End file.
